Professor Oliver Wang now knows more about Japanese American car culture in Los Angeles than he ever thought he would. He learned about racing mechanic Takeo “Chickie” Hirashima; Jimmie Yamane, the first international go-kart champion; and Larry Shinoda, the designer of the 1963 Corvette Sting Ray. He researched fish trucks from the 1950s, vehicles that carried fresh fish and hard-to-find Japanese foods six days a week to the postwar suburbs.
He also studied a caravan of 200 vehicles in the spring of 1942 that drove from the Rose Bowl to the temporary detention centers that had been created to house Japanese Americans during WWII. Once they arrived, the government impounded the cars and gave the owners nominal payment.
“These people not only had the indignity of driving themselves to be incarcerated, but they were losing the very vehicles that took them there to begin with,” said Wang. . . .
Read the entire article at Pasadena Weekly.
Jessica Koslow 